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name: bitcoin-mining-decentralized-pools description: | Decentralized mining pools: Public-Pool, BraiinsP2Pool, Solo CKPool, Datum (Ocean). Reduce centralization vs traditional pools. USE WHEN: solo mining, evaluating decentralized options, building censorship-resistant infrastructure. allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob

Decentralized Mining Pools

Mining pool architectures designed to reduce centralization, censorship risk, or trust requirements.

Solo CKPool

• Operator: KanoCK.
• Type: solo mining (no sharing among miners).
• Each miner runs a ckpool-solo instance against their bitcoind.
• Connect ASICs via Stratum V1.
• If one of YOUR ASICs finds a block, you get the entire reward.
• Pool fee: typically 0% (solo) or 1.25% on shared variants.

Use case: decentralization purist; small farms; learning.

Public-Pool

• Solo-mining pool similar to CKPool but with web dashboard.
• Free-to-use for small-scale miners.
• Sometimes "shared luck" variants exist as public services.

BraiinsP2Pool

• Successor to original P2Pool.
• Decentralized share chain — peers gossip shares like Bitcoin blocks.
• Variance and rewards determined by share chain participation.
• Miner builds own coinbase (decentralized tx selection).

Datum (Ocean Mining)

• Datum protocol: decentralized template propagation.
• Stratum V2-style; miners choose own block content.
• Used by Ocean Mining for non-custodial payouts (winners get coinbase directly).
• Pioneered by Luke Dashjr / OceanCBTC.

Compared

Aspect	Solo CKPool	BraiinsP2Pool	Datum (Ocean)	Standard Pool
Variance	Full (per miner)	Shared (chain)	Per template	Pool absorbs
Centralization	None	None	Low	High
Tx censorship	Miner choice	Miner choice	Miner choice	Pool choice
Setup complexity	Medium	High	Medium	Easy
Network share	Tiny	Tiny	Small	Major

Use cases

• Censorship resistance: ensure your txs don't get filtered out by major pools.
• Solo mining: small operations targeting a winning block (high variance).
• Reducing pool centralization at network level.

Limitations

• High variance — most miners need pool-style smoothing.
• Lower hashrate in network share = longer wait between rewards.
• Setup complexity for non-pool variants.

Why this matters

Bitcoin's security depends on no single mining cartel. The top 3-4 pools control > 60% of hashrate (as of 2025). Decentralized pools + SV2 reduce this concentration over time.

See also

• stratum-v2/SKILL.md
• pool-architectures/SKILL.md
• firmware/SKILL.md